Thursday, February 9 - Third and final day of training

We put the finishing touches on the training today by doing a few more word-collection exercises, then discussing the words they had found. I worked with the team of glossers—those who add the French meaning for each word—to help them better understand the nature of their role; I did this by having them add French glosses to the words that were collected in the first exercise of the day. Then I rounded up the typists and had them type those words and their French glosses into FLEx, the program developed by SIL to help with the creation of a bilingual dictionary, so that our team of typists had some real experience doing what they’ll be asked to do for the next two weeks.

David and Ibrahima were responsible for overseeing the progress of the word-collection groups while I attended to the further training of these other smaller groups of people. I also helped our record-keeper Rebecca understood the details of what she is expected to do in her role.

Ibrahima

We included a presentation earlier in the day on idiomatic expressions, explaining that these too were valid parts of a dictionary, as they are necessary for speaking a language correctly and completely. Then we assigned them a semantic domain to collect words in which almost every languages has such expressions for—death and dying. There was lots of lively discussion about the words and expressions that were collected in that exercise! By the time our midday meal arrived, both David and I felt pretty good about the preparedness of the participants, at least those that were there.

David explaining idiomatic expressions via Gusiilaay examples

We are still concerned about the fact that several of the individuals whom David and Ibrahima had hoped would be group leaders were unable to be at the first day of training, and some of them never came at all. I’ve agreed to lead a make-up training session on Saturday for any of these individuals who are willing to come, thus allowing them to still be part of the word-collection phase the next two weeks if they’re able to make it to that. I guess that the services of at least some of these people are quite in demand in other realms of life, as well, so they are pulled in multiple directions. My role here is to help the workshop succeed to the best of my ability, with the people who are available, with whatever giftings and experience they have.

We had chicken with our rice today instead of fish

I am the only white person—so far as I know—in Thionck-Essyl at the moment. The others have returned to Ziguinchor and plan to come back in David’s Pajero on Sunday afternoon. Ibrahima has remained here and will be looking after me, but I am staying alone in the house where Tim and I have been sharing these first few days. From my discussion with Ibrahima this evening, it sounds like I’ll be walking with him to visit some of those whom we’d like to have serve as group leaders but who never attended any of the training. We’ll see if any of them is willing to come to the make-up session on Saturday. Apart from that, I expect to have time to myself. For that, I brought several books along to read.